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America may have Dallas, but India is the real home of the family feud

Robin Pagnamenta | Mumbai

November 17 2011, 12:00am, The Times

Mukesh and Anil Ambani fell out over their father’s Reliance business empire in 2002The India Today Group / Getty

When Mumbai’s billionaire Birla family was embroiled in a bitter dispute over how to divide up its assets in the 1990s, one family member summed up the situation nicely.

“Blood is thicker than water. But profits are thicker than blood.”

A decade later, India’s break-neck pace of economic growth shows little sign of curbing the country’s reputation for vicious family squabbles over business.

In fact, now it’s official.

According to new research from Barclays, India has emerged as the world capital of disputes over family business and inheritance.

More than 60 per cent of the country’s wealthiest people have had personal experience of their family fortune leading to disagreements over money, higher than any other country in the world. The figure of 61 per cent…